Nocturnal Emissions
Nocturnal Emissions is Nigel Ayers's sound art project that has released numerous records and CDs in music styles ranging from electro-acoustic, musique concrète, hybridised beats, sound collage, post-industrial music, ambient and noise music.
Their sound art has been part of an ongoing multimedia campaign of guerrilla sign ontology utilizing video art, film, hypertext and other media, particularly collage.
History
The project was initiated in Derbyshire in the late 1970s by Nigel Ayers, a former art student who, during the period, lived in London, together with collaborators Danny Ayers and Caroline K. Since 1984 Nocturnal Emissions has continued mainly as Nigel Ayers' solo project.There were many collaborations on animated films with Charlotte Bill. Bill was never an official member of Nocturnal Emissions but admits to being one of the legion of members of The Fall.
In 1990–92, Nocturnal Emissions collaborated on Butoh dance performances in Europe and the United States, with the Japanese choreographer Poppo Shiraishi. Around this time Nocturnal Emissions' Situationist-influenced practice became increasingly informed by magick, stone circles, techno–shamanism, neo-paganism, animism and Fortean research.
Record labels
In 1979, Nocturnal Emissions founded Sterile Records. Sterile Records’ approach was a combination of the experiments of musique concrète and Fluxus combined with the critical eye of conceptual art and the spontaneity and energy of punk rock. The dark humour of industrial music and the incomprehensible nonsense of various ultra-leftist political fractions were an essential part of the mix. Sterile Records used both commercial and non-commercial media to deliver anti-capitalist messages, multi-coloured noise and information overload.The label was effectively dissolved in 1986, when Ayers founded the Earthly Delights label.
Reception
In 2013, Drowning In A Sea Of Bliss was ranked #58 in Fact magazine's "The 100 Best Albums of the 1980s".Nocturnal Emissions were depicted by the novelist Stewart Home.
Partial discography
Tissue of Lies LP Fruiting Body LP Drowning in a Sea of Bliss LP Viral Shedding LP Befehlsnotstand LP Chaos LP Dyskinesia The Fight Goes On cassette- No Sacrifice 12" Shake Those Chains Rattle Those Cages LP Songs of Love and Revolution LP The World is my Womb LP Duty Experiment 1982–1984 LP Spiritflesh LP Stoneface LP
- Da Dum 7" Invocation of the Beast Gods CD
- Beyond Logic, Beyond Belief LP Mouth of Babes LP Energy Exchange LP Cathedral CD Blasphemous Rumours CDThe Seminal Works –12 tape box set Magnetized Light CD The Quickening LP Glossalalia CD Holy of Holies – 4-hour DAT Binary Tribe CD Imaginary Time LP Autonomia CD Friction And Dirt CD Tharmuncrape An'goo CD Sunspot Activities CD Omphalos CD Collateral Salvage CD Nightscapes LP
Collaborations
- The Beauty of Pollution
- From Solstice to Equinox
- Nocturnal Emissions were associated with the Kernow section of the Association of Autonomous Astronauts.
- Oedipus Brain Foil 3xCD
- Mesmeric Enabling Device CD
- The World Turned Gingham CD
- Transgenic CD
Selected video works
Bleeding Images- ''The Foetal Grave of Progress''
Soundtracks
- The Three Trials – Adventures in Psychotica